


Cellmates

by aurilly



Category: Lost
Genre: F/M, Flash Sideways 'Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-29
Updated: 2010-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 21:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sayid and Kate meet in The Only Police Station in LA. (sideways 'verse, set just before What They Died For)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cellmates

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mollivanders](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mollivanders).



“So, what are you in for?”

Despite the day he’s spent in this cell, Sayid has barely registered the woman next to him, but he now looks over to where she’s sitting on the bed on the far side of her cell. Detective Ford came in to turn the lights off five minutes ago, so her face is illuminated solely by the moonlight streaming in through the small lone window high up on the other end of the room, but Sayid can still make out her features. She’s not exactly smiling, but there’s a quirk to her lips and a vague spark of interest in her eyes.

“I killed two men,” he admits quietly, his self-loathing washing over him anew. He feels adrift, floating always back to the same violence, the same bloodshed, but wishing he could get back to land.

The woman gets up and moves to the bed on the other side of her cell so that there’s only a thin row of bars separating them. The spark of interest has blossomed into full-blown curiosity. “You’re not even going to deny it?”

“They threatened my life and the lives of people close to me. It was self-defense, of a kind. A means of keeping them safe. I did what was necessary. Why should I deny it? What I do not understand, though, is that they are accusing me of shooting two other people---people I never saw. Not that it matters.”

“What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it does.”

Sayid shrugs, sinking back into the resigned numbness that has subsumed him for the past day. “Those two extra lives could stand in for any two others in my past. Whatever justice is handed to me, I will deserve. There is a lot of blood on my hands. I’m... I’m not a good person.”

There’s silence, and Sayid retreats into himself again, certain that this revelation has rightfully repulsed his would-be conversant back into silence. He can feel her gaze upon him and assumes she’s sizing him up as the villain he is. So he’s shocked when instead he feels her hand rest upon his a minute later, having slid between the bars.

“There’s something about you...” she says, in an earnest, dreamy kind of way. “I don’t know what it is... but I have a feeling you’re not nearly as bad as you think you are.”

At this, Sayid looks up. Now that she’s only a few inches away, he can see her better---beautiful locks cascading down her shoulders, freckles dark in the moonlight. No, he doesn’t know this woman; he would have remembered a face like hers. Nonetheless, her misplaced belief in him stirs up the first flush of emotion of any kind that he has felt since leaving the restaurant. Sayid picks up the soft hand resting atop his and brings it lightly toward his mouth.

“You are very kind, but I assure you...” The rest of his thought is lost as the touch of his lips on her skin triggers a strange sensation. Waves of comfort, camaraderie, trust, and deep caring wash over him. Her face is still wholly unfamiliar, but _she_ suddenly seems more familiar to him than his oldest friends. Sayid doesn’t understand it.

She apparently feels it, too, because she jumps as though she’s touched an electric wire. “What?” she asks, and he can tell she isn’t asking what he’d been about to assure her. They sit facing each another, cross-legged on their identical cots, searching one another’s faces and bodies for some trigger of recognition.

“_Do_ I know you?” he murmurs, second-guessing his first impression.

“I’m Kate. Kate Austen? Sometimes I go by Annie,” she offers hopefully, covering all possible bases.

Sayid leans in closer to the bars. They are so close now that he can feel her exhalations on his cheek. Something about her makes him feel... not quite alive, but he starts to remember what it felt like to want to live. He’s still holding her hand, unable to let it go. “It’s lovely to meet you, Kate... again, perhaps. Sayid Jarrah.”

She sighs in frustration. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Why are you here, Kate?” Sayid isn’t interested in her crime. He just wants to find a clue to what this---she---means.

Kate pauses, and he can see her struggling with whether or not to give into whatever it is they are feeling and be open with him. Finally, she blurts out, “I’m accused of murder. Killing my father, actually.”

Sayid doesn’t ask her if she did it. He doesn’t care.

“You were here when I arrived. For how long?”

“Just a few hours. They caught me in Australia last week and brought me to LA, but I got away. Then they caught me again.”

Finally, a lead. “I was in Sydney last week and returned only two days ago. Maybe that is where I know you from.”

“I came back two days ago, too. On Oceanic Airlines. Flight 815.”

“The one that arrived at about 1pm?”

“Yeah, that's the one. Is that it? Is that where I know you from?”

“Perhaps,” Sayid replies. “But...” He doesn’t know how to finish. It’s an explanation, of sorts, but it isn’t nearly enough. Whatever is happening here goes deeper than two strangers who may have glimpsed one another on an airplane. The fact that he has no recollection of seeing her there makes it even less satisfying.

“Yeah,” she replies, as if reading his mind. “I don’t think it’s that, either. But you want to know something crazy? Detective Ford, who brought me in here... he was on our flight, too.”

“How odd.”

They’re quiet again, basking in one another’s presence until Kate startles him by getting up and standing on her cot. “Give me a boost, will you?”

“What are you doing?” Sayid asks, but even though she doesn’t answer, he still stands up and braces his hands to allow her to use him as a stepladder, to go where, he doesn’t know. She climbs up and grabs hold of the bars on the roof of the small cells. Although the security of the actual cells in this makeshift prison room is sub-par, the actual room is impossible to escape. The ceilings are much higher than the tops of the cells, and the door is vaulted with a foot-think door of steel, with multiple locks like a bank safe. The wall in which the sole window is located would be impossible to scale. Sayid watches as Kate pulls herself up between two bars, and comes to rest on top of the cage.

“There’s something really weird about this,” she remarks as she sits on her cage. But after a second, she unfurrows her brow and slips gracefully down into his cell. She lands on the floor, and Sayid gets off his cot to join her. He sits with his back against the wall and she scoots in between his legs to snuggle her back into his chest. Sayid wraps his arms around her and she rests her head on his shoulder. Their hands come together again as if by their own accord. Despite where they are, Sayid has never felt so comfortable. He is also never this physically forward with women; there is something about Kate that keeps him from finding his sudden intimacy with this stranger inappropriate. In fact, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

“You are extremely agile, Kate. I can see how you were able to evade your capturers,” he whispers into her hair.

She lets out a hollow laugh. “Yeah, I’d better be good at it. I’ve been running for three years now.”

“That’s a long time.” Sayid thinks of how many years he’s wanted to run from his past but found himself unable to. He’s always come back---back to his self-loathing, back to Nadia.

“Yeah, it is. I’m tired, Sayid. I’m tired of running. I want... I think... A couple of days ago, I met this girl...” Kate trails off and Sayid wonders what exactly she’s trying to tell him. If this is going where he thinks it is, he’s going to be disappointed.

“You met a girl?” he asks, repeating her words slowly and suggestively.

Kate gets it and chokes back a guffaw that relieves Sayid. “Not like that. Actually, she was on the plane with us, too.”

“As was half the universe, it would appear.”

“I know, right? Anyway, maybe you noticed her. Really tiny, blonde, eight months pregnant.”

Sayid nods. He remembers having felt concern that a woman in her condition was traveling alone.

“Well, we ended up spending the day together. It’s like she trusted me for some reason. No one’s trusted me in a long time.” Kate pauses, and Sayid massages her head to help her continue. “But then... She wasn’t ready to have the baby. She was alone and scared and I _left_ her, Sayid. I left her to keep running. Now I don’t even know how to find her again.”

Sayid doesn’t know what to say. It isn’t the sort of situation in which one can offer tangible comfort. Thankfully, Kate isn’t looking for sympathy. She’s looking for an ear, and if there’s one thing Sayid is good at, it’s listening. She goes on, “I want to get out of here, but now it isn’t because I’m trying to run. I want to keep looking for her, and I can’t do that in jail. I don’t even know her. Does that make me crazy?”

“I want to _stay_ in jail because I want to _begin_ running. Does that make _me_ crazy?”

Kate turns her head so she can look up at him. “Who are you running from?”

“Myself.”

“There are better places to do that in than jail, you know.”

“There is also a woman.”

Kate stiffens, and Sayid hopes that she is just as mistakenly disappointed as he had been a moment ago. Still, he hurries to explain, “I said goodbye to her before I was arrested. I told her that I would never see her again.”

“Oh,”Kate replies flatly. “I’m sorry.”

“Please, don’t be. I have spent the entire day attempting to reconcile how I feel, and I think...” After a day of vainly trying to figure out what he feels, the truth suddenly articulates itself, and it’s only as the words are tumbling out of his mouth that Sayid realizes this is the answer. “I think I’m _relieved_. I meant what I said. I wanted what I said. I’ve spent so long wanting to be free of everything. If prison is the only way to achieve that, then perhaps it is what I deserve.”

There’s a pause, and then Kate moves so that her back is in the crook of his arm instead of against his chest. “You deserve better.” Then she cups his face in her hand and kisses him. She’s warm and squirmy against him and she tastes like sun and fruit and salt water... even though they had chicken tenders and French fries for dinner. Sayid has never lived near a beach, but Kate still somehow tastes like home.

She raises her arms towards the ceiling and he pulls her shirt off with one motion and then quickly sheds his own. As soon as the fabric is over their heads, she attacks him with her lips again. Sayid’s fingers slide along underneath the fabric of her bra and linger at the clasp. He hesitates, and then dances his fingers further up her spine, leaving the clasp intact.

What they’re doing is right enough that he doesn’t want to stop, but it’s somehow not quite right enough to warrant taking it to the next level. Kate is beautiful and there’s no question that he’s attracted to her, but... Sayid isn’t sure if they’re overplaying the level of physical attraction they do feel because they don’t know how else to act upon their connection.

At any rate, they continue making out, softly but desperately. Sayid isn’t sure they could stop, even if they wanted to. It’s as though Kate is the first step of an equation he’s been trying his whole life to solve, and even though he has a niggling feeling that she isn’t the true solution, this is by far the most headway he’s ever made. He kisses her for what feels like a year, until drowsiness begins to set in. Carefully, he slides their bodies lower, not letting their lips part, until they’re laying flat on the ground. They must fall asleep kissing, because Sayid can’t remember stopping.

He is awoken the next morning by the sound of the locks on the vault door being opened. Panicked and still mostly asleep, he feels beside him to rouse Kate before anyone sees her in his cell, but there’s nothing there.

“Morning,” he hears from further away than he expects. Sayid opens his eyes to see Kate back in her cell, for all the world as though she’d never left it. “Put your shirt on. Quick.”

Sayid grabs his shirt from the floor and pulls it over his head just before the door swings open to reveal Detective Ford. Sayid is still groggy as he quickly climbs back onto his cot. He looks up and for the first time, he wonders if perhaps the detective is familiar, too, but he quickly dismisses the idea as being nothing more than sleepy projection of his lingering confusion about Kate. Strangely, however, he catches Kate giving Ford the same wondering stare he can feel on his own face; she must be projecting, too.

Sayid is too busy resenting the bizarrely cheerful Scotsman who interrupts his last few hours with Kate to even look at him, but, despite his continued taciturn aspect, Sayid no longer feels as lost or depressed as he had been the previously day. Once they’re in the van and the man begins ranting impossibly about escape, it takes just a glance at Kate and a shared smile to get him out of even this, lesser, funk. Soon they’re both innocently giggling at a shared joke---something Sayid hasn’t done in longer than he can remember. Whether or not Desmond is right that help will come, Sayid now feels ready to seize whatever awaits him, even if it is something planned by a lunatic. The past is behind him now and he’s moving forward.

When rescue _does_ happen, and the man with the Hummer comes to separate them, Sayid bids Kate a silent farewell.

They both know they’ll see each other again, somehow.


End file.
